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"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" - Homer Simpson
Perhaps Ethan Hawke got that bruise on his cheekbone from rattling his face in Uma's heaving bosom. Heh heh.
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"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" - Homer Simpson
I apologize (kind of) for being harsh, but we've had problems in the past on this site with people spreading false rumors about companies. Spreading unsubstantiated rumors about people is infinately worse. My source is CNN. Your source is Craig Kilborn. Who should we believe? I know the answer, do you?
I think we can all safely assume that John Leguizamo will NEVER see the inside of the Oscar ceremonies as they are taking place.
Bobby - try actually reading my post before responding to it. I never said Craig said anything in the first place. I said John did.
My whole point was to visit the comedic possibility that the shiny faces of our industry, the actors and actresses which we lift so high on our collective soldiers, may be human afterall and occasionally forego the lawyers if favor of a good ol' boxing match. It's not like anyone's image was being tattered by what was being talked about. How many people actually participate in this site on a regular basis. Couple hundred? I'd be interested to know.
I personally like Will Smith. I have ever since "Parents Just Don't Understand". You guys need to lighten up. Maybe you need to quit watching CNN Dustin, it's making you bitter and gullible. And Joe, if you think John Leguazamo is not a good actor, try checking out "The Freak" or some of his other stage shows. He's quite talented and can perform a variety of characters.
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"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" - Homer Simpson
Look, I'm sorry for coming down on you like that. I read your post right after reading about all the garbage that was spewed regarding A Beautiful Mind and how John Nash was supposedly an anti-semite and therefore the movie didn't deserve best picture. After reading about that, your post really pushed my buttons.
Come on guys, we won't bite (much).
Company lawyers who fear that anyone who participates will misrepresent the company, creating actual work for them to do.
C'mon everybody! Look at all the posts by John Pytlak! We've only sued Kodak a dozen times or so! And they've only lost a couple million dollars due to the damaged reputation, not the billions that were projected. We promise that the frivolous lawsuits will be kept to under 10 per year. 
That having been said, it's a good rule of thumb, IMHO, to regard anything you write on a forum, bulletin board, listserve or anything which is cirulated via the Internet (basically, any electronic communication other than a private e-mail sent between two non-workplace addresses) as a public statement which can be read by anyone, including individuals you might be criticising. The legal situation is just too risky to do anything else, especially in a forum situation which crosses international boundaries.
Having a list of who has read each thread would be an unnecessary strain on the server and the software would have to be severely hacked to support such a feature anyway. Again, it's not worth the hassle.
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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
quote:
the kind of people who refuse to register and participate would be too frightened to use their real names anyway
Exactly Man says: Exactly.
There are probably several times as many silent lurkers as active participants. Among the lurkers are equipment manufacturers, cinema circuit execs, theater managers, etc. Oh yeah, they are here, probably in droves. Some of them despise film-tech because sometimes unkind things are said about them and they find such comments threatening. In their circle of associates, they defend themselves and deflect critical comments by painting film-techers as whiners, uninformed, grudge-carrying ax-grinders not interested in facts or the "real world", etc. They can't acknowledge that film-tech is about raising the bar of presentation quality, because to do so means openly discussing the problems of their industry. Wouldn't want to do that.
Of course the reason I can say this is I'm not in the industry so I can't get fired. 
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"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" - Homer Simpson
If you're working because you have to (which is almost everyone), you may think twice before painting yourself into the "Look at me, I'm a troublemaker!" corner with your employer. I can say in all honesty if I were working for, say, Regal or Cinemark, whose presentation I often criticize (and occasionally praise) here, I would probably temper my comments or not talk about presentation at all, for fear of drawing negative attention. Yes, ideally they should welcome constructive criticism because it can help them improve their product. But that's in Perfect World.
Sorry if that sounds a bit vague - here's a 'for example'. Let's say that I wrote a highly critical post about an product manufactured and sold in the UK which Brad allowed to appear on this site. The manufacturer reads the post and believes my criticisms to be unjustified because they are based on false information, a misunderstanding of what that product is supposed to do or another serious material difference. (S)he then has a number of options. 1 - ask Brad to remove the post. It's his site, running on his equipment and therefore his decision. What if he says no? I guess that option 2 would be for that hypothetical UK company to go all the way to Texas, hire a US lawyer and try to get a court order for the post to be removed. That would be far too expensive for many small companies. Option 2 - go to all the ISPs operating in the UK and ask them to block Film Tech. That would mean contacting hundreds of organisations and would to all intents and purposes be impossible.
Finally, they could just sue me, which I'm pretty sure is what they'd do. This is exactly what happened recently with www.friendsreunited.co.uk - a site which enables you to make contact with people you were at school with and have lost contact. Someone wrote a post alleging that one of their former teachers was a paedophile - that teacher found out about it, sued the individual and won substantial damages. He didn't even bother with the website owners.
So in this country at least, a precedent seems to have been established whereby an individual is responsible for what he or she publishes on the Internet, not the site operator or ISP. Incidentally, this is different from other media: for example, the case under the Obscene Publications Act when Lady Chatterley's Lover was published was directed against the publisher, not the author.
But there's another aspect to this as well. I sometimes read Film Tech from home in the evenings, but mostly read it at work during coffee breaks and stuff. Were I to post something which could incur civil or criminal liability, my employer would have a pretty good case for alleging that I'd bought it into disrepute. After all, click on the 'who' button above this post and you'll get my work details. I suppose I could try and avoid this possibility by describing myself as a private individual and never mentioning my professional life on this site, but as the whole point of this site is mainly to discuss work practices, this would kind of defeat the object of the exercise.
I'm not trying to say never criticise anyone or anything, but just that it's necessary to think about whether that criticism is constructive or not, and if so to ensure that it's fair and that every effort has been made to ensure that it's based on accurate information.
But if I was to sue you for slandering my beloved Vic 10, New Zealand does not have the First.
Would you still be safe?